Quebec's video game industry isn't unionized. This labour group wants to change that | CBC News

· Posted: May 02, 2024 2:20 PM EDT | Last Updated: May 2

A major labour organization is launching a campaign to unionize the entire Quebec video game industry — a field plagued by mass layoffs in recent months.

Faced with professional burnout, job insecurity and disparity in treatment, some current and former video game workers like Rida Hamdani believe creating a union would mitigate those challenges.

Hamdani worked in quality assurance before leaving the field. Now, he's involved with Games Workers Unite Montreal, a group working with Quebec's Confédération des syndicats nationaux (CSN) to improve working conditions in the industry.

"I think there is renewed interest in unionization because working conditions have changed," Hamdani said. "We are in an economic crisis. Many people are starting to reconsider their situation." 

Thousands of video game employees worldwide were fired already this year, putting 2024 on track to outpace job losses in 2023.

Of the 15,000 people in Quebec who work in the $1.4-billion video game industry, the CSN told CBC News no game developers are union members.

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Inspired by Starbucks and Amazon employees, where unions have made some inroads, Game Workers Unite and the CSN want to create a national union for video game workers.

"It is a very important industry in Quebec, an industry that is capable of meeting the needs of its employees," Hamdani said. "But often, passion is a source of exploitation," he said, adding that many workers do not necessarily know their rights.

The video game industry sold "a supposedly cool workplace, to make people accept that the hours were endless," said CSN president Caroline Senneville, noting that layoffs and unpaid overtime in the field have generated more interest in unions.

Senneville said that as the industry matures, staff are juggling more responsibilities than they did when they were newly minted graduates, meaning a perk like having a ping-pong table at the office "just doesn't do it anymore."

"When you're working and everything's great for you, you don't always feel the need to unionize," she said. 

Rare for the industry

Jonathan Lessard, an associate professor in design and computation arts at Concordia University, says it's "pretty exceptional" for game studios to be unionized. 

Unionization efforts have been underway for a decade, he says, but they haven't had significant results.

Lessard noted that the value of the industry is based almost entirely on human resources.

"The situation is more difficult," he said. "Those in the industry may be more risk-averse."

Jean-Jacques Hermans heads the Guilde du jeu vidéo du Québec, a non-profit co-operative representing 330 video-game businesses in the province.

"We are obviously open to anything that can help in terms of a better work environment for the employees," said Hermans.

Overall, he said, Quebec's thriving video game industry has been more insulated from the mass layoffs and other issues faced elsewhere in the industry.

"We've been pretty much protected from the impact from what's been going on globally," said Hermans. "There have been, obviously, layoffs, but it's been four or 500 and we have 15,000 employees."

He said jobs in any sector with strict production deadlines come with crunch-time stress. He said Quebec gaming studios have been making efforts to reduce stress in the last three to six years, such as allowing employees to work from home and giving them options like four-day work weeks.

Hermans said a recent study found that a large majority of Quebec gaming industry employees are happy and enjoying their work so "I think that has to be taken into consideration."

Based on reporting by Radio-Canada's David Savoie and CBC's Matt D'Amours